Architect Designs 3-D Printed, Mobius Strip-Inspired Landscape House

Architects have tossed around the idea of 3-D printing buildings, but Universe Architect’s first one could have a twist.

Inspired by the Mobius strip, Janjaap Ruijssenaars’ house design wraps around itself, twisting the interior to the exterior and back. Ruijssenaars and his collaborator, artist and mathematician Rinus Roelofs, call it the Landscape House because landscapes, too, are continuous.

Ruijssenaars started with a strip of paper, twisted into August Ferdinand Mobius’ famous band. But when he expanded the paper to have a thickness, and 3-D printed it, he saw in it the shape of a building. Even the 3-D printing was a nod to continuity.

“All other materials, when making models, had a visual beginning and an end,” says Ruijssenaars. “You have to cut a material and later tape it. With 3-D printing you can start at the bottom and end at the top resulting in an endless Mobius strip without a cut.”

The building itself could start construction as early as next year in two locations, one in the Netherlands and one in Brazil. Like the model, it will be 3-D printed as well, using the D-Shape, a stereolithographic printer, which binds layers of sand in structures as big as two-story buildings. D-Shape says the artificial sandstone is stronger than concrete, but the Landscape House calls for 20-foot by 30-foot hollow sandstone segments filled with reinforced concrete.